How to Get Your Website Visitors to Take Action

September 25, 2024 Pauline Wiles

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Last time, I shared my best tips for how to bring more traffic to your author website.

But I’d like to emphasize 2 additional considerations:

Instead of just thinking about the number of visitors, you also want the right people to visit. That means, people who are likely to love your work and books, or want to collaborate with you in some way.
And once these “right” visitors are looking at your website, you want them to take action.

So, taking action is my subject today.

How to get website visitors to take action (in general)

Strategic website design starts with careful consideration for your overall author business and what success means for you. When you work with me on your Author Website Blueprint, we’ll talk about your long term author goals, marketing preferences, and the streams of income in your author business.

After that, there are some universal tactics I recommend. If I’m designing and building your author website for you, I’ll take care of these. But if you’re working on your own, here are important tips to consider:

Get clear what action you actually want your visitor to take next. How can we expect them to do it, if you’re not sure yourself?!
Give few choices for which action. It might feel tempting to present myriad options (for example read this, click here, buy this, follow me here, buy a coffee here) but it’s better to have one main action and one secondary action in mind. Your preferred action might be different on different pages - for example, buy a book on your Books page, versus contact you on your Media page.
> Tip: if in doubt, encouraging the visitor to sign up for your email list is a great choice with long term value for your author business. More on this below.
Present a high quality, modern looking website, to reassure your visitor that all of your work is of high quality too. If you haven’t done a professional, fresh job with your author website, they are likely to assume that your books might not be professional, either.
> Tip: lose the clutter. Especially if your website is older, or if you’ve tried to use it as the Wikipedia of your writing career (and life in general), you’re likely to have a lot of messy content. This detracts from your core message and is confusing or overwhelming for your visitors. Less really is more, especially on your main pages. A sidebar (on your main pages) is a really strong clue that your website is dated and neglected.
Actions should be buttons. If you don’t know how to create a button instead of a simple text link, or if your website tool (older WordPress themes, I’m looking at you!) makes this hard, it’s time to get professional help. Not only are buttons more eyecatching, they’re significantly easier for fingers to tap, on a mobile device.
> Tip: use your most eye-catching palette color for buttons.
Related: Color tips for your website
Make sure these actions are clear and easy on mobile. Depending on your reader demographic, you might find that a large percentage of your visitors are now viewing your site on a phone. It’s essential you check your site on mobile — including every time you change it — to make sure your action buttons are clear and working well. Although I love Squarespace, it has some mobile pitfalls that not everyone is aware of. The last thing you want is buttons overlapping with key content! And yes, I’ve seen this error on multiple sites. Find my free video tutorial with mobile tips here.

How to get website visitors to buy your books

You’re likely reading this because you’re an author. So I’m assuming one of the key actions that you’d like a visitor to take is to buy a book. Excellent! Please read on.

Example: Lēigh Tudor shows readers where to begin

Write a great book. I don’t mean to be flippant here, but, honestly, there’s only so far a poor quality product will take you.
Make sure your book covers are high quality and appropriate for your genre. Your website design and visuals need to support the overall vibe of your book cover(s). If you’re published in multiple countries with a lot of design differences, you’ll likely want your website design to be more neutral.
On your website, make the book cover large. Assuming you have a great cover, on your Book page, I want the book cover(s) to be the star of the show. This doesn’t mean you should upload a large file size: just make sure the cover takes up a generous amount of space on the screen.
Show social proof, that is, praise from other readers. Beta reader comments are fine, if your book isn’t released yet.
Include clear “Buy” buttons, leading to a choice of retailers if your books are available from different outlets.
Link your book cover images to your preferred retailer. Especially on mobile phones, visitors may tap an image and expect it to do something.
If you sell books, for example signed paperbacks, directly, integrate your online store on your website. Don’t make a reader contact you or send money by PayPal. (The exception is for bulk orders, and possibly for international shipping; you’ll likely need to make special arrangements for these transactions.)
If you write a series, make the order clear. And if you have multiple series, show where to start each one.
Example: For my client Lēigh Tudor, we created a First in Series section on her books page.
If you’re available for book club visits, make a page on your website where you state that, and offer book club discussion questions.
Example: my client Lisa Manterfield has book club question downloads for all of her novels.
Keep your website up to date so that all of your books are featured. Be sure to update your website around the time of a new book release, so that you change the information from Coming Soon to Pre-order Now to Buy Now.
Make sure your website link is listed in the back of your book(s), on your social media profiles, in your email footer, and on all bookmarks and other printed material. It needs to be easy for your readers to find definitive information about you, and about the titles you have available.

How to get visitors to join your author email list

This is one of the most overlooked actions by authors. I always encourage the value of thinking about email signups, because this is your permission to stay in touch, directly in their inbox, for a long-lasting relationship with your reader.

In other words, instead of focusing only one selling one book, when someone joins your email list, you dramatically increase the chances that they’ll buy all of your future books too.

Example: Lori Arnold offers these lead magnets to her email subscribers

Give visitors a compelling and attractive reason for parting with their email address, by offering them something free in return. In marketing terms, this is a lead magnet, often known in bookish circles as a reader magnet. If you have an extensive back catalog, you should consider giving a free e-book. But if not, don’t worry, there are lots of other goodies you can offer. Set this up for automatic electronic delivery, so you don’t need to take action every time you get a new email subscriber. See my suggestions for what to offer: 33 reader magnet ideas for authors.
> Want to see my lead magnet in action? Scroll down to find 12 Essential Questions That Your Author Website Designer Should Ask You, and how I’ve presented the opportunity to join my email list.
> Example shown here: complimentary resources from my client Lori Arnold.
Use a polite popup. One of the questions I get asked most often when I speak to groups, is whether you should have a popup on your website. I say yes: even though most of us claim we hate them, research shows that they work. However, that doesn’t mean your popup should be obnoxious. If your email tool is worth its fee, it should allow you to create a popup that:
- Waits for the visitor to explore a bit, before it appears;
- Clearly shows their reward (your lead magnet), and your privacy policy;
- When dismissed, stays hidden for a few days or even longer (it shouldn’t appear on every subsequent page during the same visit);
- Does not compete with other popups, making your visitor do battle with a stream of mini windows.
Related: Should you put a popup on your Squarespace author website?
Include your email list sign up form on every page (I love putting this in the footer). If a website visitor decides they’d like to hear from you, let’s make it easy for them.
> For bonus points, make sure there is an appealing mockup image of your freebie, wherever you’re asking people to sign up.
Related: What to put in your author website footer
It’s also worth making a dedicated page, called free or subscribe, so you can link to it directly if you need to. This also gives you the opportunity to feature your lead magnet as a button in your website header, which is easy if you’re using Squarespace.
And I can’t finish without repeating one of my favorite mantras: Don’t call it a newsletter! Just because we all know it’s a newsletter and refer to it as a newsletter, when you’re inviting people to subscribe, I challenge you to find a more appealing angle.
Related: Don’t call it an author newsletter!

Conclusion

A strong, high performing author website doesn’t just look good. It’s also carefully configured to maximize the chances that a visitor takes the action that you’ve identified, for your long term author success. There are multiple ways to achieve this, and most of the tactics above build on each other to make every visit more valuable.

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Would you like me to design and build your Squarespace website?

As a professional specializing in strategic websites for authors and solopreneurs with books, I’m an expert in the features you need for a website that delights your audience, prompts action, and generates business results. If you’d like niche expertise, strategic advice, top quality design, and your technical headaches solved, consider hiring me.

After careful preparation together, I’ll design, build and launch your site in (usually) 2-3 weeks. Learn more, and then schedule a complimentary chat!

Other resources for your author website strategy

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